It’s Story-a-Day May!

Yes, I know that we’re halfway through the month, but better late than never, right?

Did you know that May is “Story-a-Day” month? Yup, it’s another one of those writing challenges I love so much. This time, the challenge is to write one story every day. How you define story is up to you.

This is definitely the writing month challenge that intimidates me the most, which is probably why I’ve only attempted it once (and I think I only wrote 4 stories). Still, the challenge intrigues me, especially as I continue to ponder the short story form. This seems like the perfect opportunity to pound out all those half-baked short stories ideas floating around in my mind, right?

Even if you don’t participate, the StoryADay website has a great blog, and you should definitely sign up for the daily prompts. They might inspire your writing beyond the month of May … or you can do like I do, and foist them on your students or your writing group. (I use them for the Teen Writing Group I lead at the library — thanks, StoryADay May, for making my job easier!)

NaNoWriMo: On the Home Stretch

Well, in a few days, it will all be over. I’m down to having to write 1500 words a day to finish on time. I haven’t written my 1500 words for today, but I will.

What I won’t do is finish this novel; I think I’ve probably about hit the halfway point this month.

Since this is a “rewrite from scratch” of a previous novel, the main purpose of NaNo this year wasn’t to create something new, but to see whether it was worth returning to something old — something very, very old. The first draft of this novel was the first novel I wrote, fifteen years ago.

About 45,000 words in, I’m still not sure whether this is a story that is worth revisiting. Last night I had the rather jarring realization that I think I’ve been going about this story all wrong. It’s hard not to feel like all those words written so far were wasted — did I REALLY have to write nearly 50,000 words to realize I should have been doing it differently all along? (Although, if I’m going to be honest and count earlier incarnations of this story, it’s really about 250,000 words later).

I’m still not sure whether I’ve answered the question I set out to answer–namely, whether this story is worth investing in outside of the frenzy of November. I know that after Wednesday, I’ll put this novel away for a long time, as I focus on my other competing writing priorities. There is something about this novel that continues to haunt my psyche; in fact, I think it’s something of a roadmap to my unconscious. Whether I ever do something “more” with this story or not, I have a feeling that even after November 30, I won’t have seen the last of it.

NaNoWriMo: One Week Down, Three to Go

Well, the first week of NaNoWriMo is behind me. The first couple days, as I successfully wrote my target word count (about 1700), walked my dog, did some freelance work, made it to work on time, continued to plan my wedding, AND made progress on the anthology I’m editing, I thought, “Hey, nothing to this! I’m going to be just fine!”

By the end of the week, I remembered, “Oh yeah — I have to keep up this pace all month long.”

So far, I’ve written at my kitchen table, on my couch, in a random library in South Dakota, at a coffee shop, at the library where I work, and at my fiance’s half-finished house. This week, I plan to expand those locales to an airplane and a hotel room in Florida. I’ve fueled my writing with Powerbars, green tea, coffee, and Starbursts. And although I’m already exhausted, I’m grateful for the reminder NaNo gives me that, when there’s a will, there’s a way. There are so many excuses not to write, but in my performance-obsessed little finisher brain, during NaNo I make writing a priority and I find a way to make it work. No, I can’t keep up this pace all year long. But what I can do is remember how I managed to steal half an hour here, twenty minutes there, to write. And hopefully, I will keep doing that. Because if nothing else, NaNo at least makes me feel like a real writer.

My intention was to be a little more relaxed about NaNo this year, but so far, that ain’t really happening. I went to my first write-in last weekend, and found myself annoyed that most of the participants sat around talking about their novels instead of writing them (so I sequestered myself at the bar and kept driving toward that word count.) But I did have a virtual write-in with the friend who convinced me to do NaNo this year, and I exchanged several emails with another friend who is trying it for the first time. And since then, I’ve wondered if those folks who annoyed me at the coffee shop had something right. For a lot of people, NaNo is about the shared experience more than the word count. I’ve never been a social writer, but one thing I want to learn this November is to let go just a little bit. I’ve successfully been able to let go of the desire for perfection that keeps many people’s word counts low, I’ve successfully been able to embrace the mantra of “quantity not quality.” But next, I want to find a way to hold this “driven-ness” that overtakes me during NaNo a little more lightly, so that I might, once in a while, choose sitting around to chat over my word count. And so, at the end of it all, I can feel both accomplished and sane. A girl can dream!

Oh, Internet, How I (Haven’t Really) Missed You

In the wee hours of Monday, September 20, my wireless router died quietly in its sleep. Monday morning, I was in denial. It will come back, I told myself. All morning, I did laundry and washed dishes. By noon, my Internet still wasn’t up. I gathered my courage, packed up my computer, and brought it to my parents’ place. On days that I’m not at the library, if I can’t get online, I can’t work. I accept and return all my assignments online, not to mention the regular email accounts that must be checked to make sure I don’t drop the ball on an all-important issue.

Yesterday, my Internet was still down. I went into the library half an hour early, where I accepted two orders from Scribendi using the library connection. Later that night, I went to my parents’ place again to download both orders to my flash drive, so that I could work on them offline until the Internet tech guy came out to my place at 4 today. That means that before 4 pm, there was no one around except me, Microsoft Word, and two long-ish manuscripts in need of editing. Both were due by the end of the day.

Last night, I estimated that the manuscripts would take me about 14 hours to edit; I wasn’t looking forward to the long day, but I need the money and both were at least interesting projects. I felt incredibly impressed with myself as I worked through the first manuscript before lunch; by the time the Internet guy came, I’d done my first pass on the second one, too. In all, both manuscripts took me about eight hours to complete, six hours fewer than I’d predicted. Now, this isn’t totally due to my lack of connectivity; both pieces were in better shape than the pieces I’m used to editing, and I based my estimation on word count alone without taking a peek at the skill of the writers. Still, there was something so incredibly satisfying about having no choice but to dig into those pages, at least while I was seated at my computer. Usually when I’m editing or writing something, a thousand distractions run through my mind: has that client’s payment been deposited into my checking account yet? Do I have new email at Yahoo? What about gmail? What were the guidelines of that publisher I thought might be a good fit for my work? Have any of my friends updated their Livejournals? What’s the current prize on Coppergoose? The gossip on Facebook? Should I update my progress on my “currently reading” shelf at Goodreads? What’s the meaning of sigil, anyway?

I’m sorry to say that my mind grabs onto these distractions when I start to feel bored or stuck with my current project, and I follow them wherever they may take me, taking just “one more click” like an addict needing one more puff on one more cigarette. I justify each one by saying it will only take a few minutes, which is usually true. But snippets of five or ten or fifteen minutes away from my work or my writing add up. The havoc it wreaks on my brain is even worse.

I still had many of these urges today. Knowing I didn’t have immediate gratification, they eventually subsided, and my focus improved. When I really needed a mental break, I had lunch, drank a cup of tea, took a power nap, and even watched an episode of Sex and the City. The difference between this and my usual working habits were that each of those activities had a clear end point. The food and tea run out. Sex and the City episodes are less than 30 minutes long. I had to wake up to let the Internet guy in. This means I was more productive than usual today, but I didn’t feel totally burnt out at the end of it. That’s because I didn’t throw all those tiny increments of time away on the rabbit hole that is the Internet, a place in which there is no end in sight, and willpower alone is your only salvation.

I found myself feeling a little let down when the Internet was back up again. Now that barrage of distractions would once again be part of my life. Not having the Internet in my home isn’t an option; for me, no Internet means no income. Still, it occurred to me for the first time that I have power over whether my computer is connected to the Internet or not. So when I settled in to finish my edits, post-Internet, I pulled the plug on it until I was ready to upload my completed assignments.

What a relief to realize that I have a choice! Sure, the Internet is still only a click away, but that extra step of having to reconnect it makes me think twice before I chase whatever random whim sounds more fun than my work. I’m making a commitment right now to disconnect the Internet when I need to be intensely engaged with writing or editing. I’ve known for a while that multi-tasking is bad for my brain, but now I’m finally going to do something about it. I challenge you to do the same.

 

Poetry, Short Stories, and Realizations

A good friend just reminded me that today marks the beginning of Story-a-Day May–a challenge to write a story every day for a month. This comes on the heels, of course, of Poetry Month and Script Frenzy, a challenge to write 30 poems in a month and to write a script in a month, respectively.  And then, of course, there is my personal favorite, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), the challenge to write a novel in a month, in November. This has me thinking that one could easily spend a whole year devoted purely to writing challenges, with all the “off-months” consumed with revising the frenzied outputs of April, May, and November.  In fact, I like this idea so much that I’m tempted to make this my “writing project” for 2012 (which is, incidentally, also the year that I’ll get married, which should give me plenty of material.)

As of now, I came in short of the April 30-poem challenge at 23 poems (respectable or measly, depending on your perspective). 24 if you count the one that LiveJournal deleted of its own volition.

Until November, I’m continuing to explore short forms. I realized recently why poetry and short stories are so difficult for me — it’s because my writing Kryptonite is endings. With these forms, the end is always looming within sight, even from the very first word. Perhaps my preference for novels doesn’t come just from the fact that I read more in that format, but because it allows me to procrastinate writing an ending, sometimes for years and/or for over a hundred thousand words. BUT shorter forms also mean that I get to revise sooner, which, for me, is the fun part.

I won’t be doing Story-a-Day May, but I WILL commit to finishing my short-story-in-progress this month.  Strange that that can feel like a bigger challenge than the 50,000 words demanded by NaNo!

Snow Days and Writing

Snow days are so good for writing.

Being snowed in today reminded me of living in Duluth, and the time I was snowed in my apartment for two days in a row. My room-mate was in India, missing the only blizzard we got that year. I was working on the novel I jokingly called “Go to Hell” because it was a companion novel to one that had the word “Heaven” in the title, and because it gave me so much trouble while I was writing it. But there was something about those snow days that kept driving me to the computer again and again to get those scenes down.

Today I finally collected my 30+ poems from November, pulling them from my paperjournal, my Pictojournal, my Livejournal, and even my program for the Call to Action conference. Now I need to cull the collection down to 10 – 20 pages (currently it’s 36, but I won’t be sorry to see some of those poems go.) Here are a few that I feel more comfortable showing in the light of day now that they’ve gone through a first revision:

Tower

Did I ever tell you how happy I was in that tower?
From there I saw blue water stretch out forever—
I thought the silver moon on the black lake
Was the essence of joy.

From there I saw blue water stretch out forever—
And a narrow bed is never lonely under a full moon.
Was the essence of joy
Lining up my shoes perfectly at the door?

And a narrow bed is never lonely under a full moon,
And no one ever kicks my shoes across the floor.
Lining up my shoes perfectly at the door,
I rearranged the furniture to fill the empty places.

And no one ever kicks my shoes across the floor
When the hours stretch before me like the water below
I rearrange the furniture to fill the empty places,
And I don’t wait at windows for you anymore.

When the hours stretch before me like the water below,
I thought the silver moon on the black lake
And I don’t wait at windows for you anymore.
Did I ever tell you how happy I was in that tower?
- Nov 5, 2010

Disturb the Dandelions

Did you hear what I said
as you glanced up at TVs and waiters?
This conversation
has been choking my brain
like dandelions overrunning the lawn.
I watched them grow as I watched you shrink.

She accused me of pulling out my hair,
dropping it in the breeze like dandelion fluff
just so she could make all
those nights of crying make sense
as I kept my secrets in the room upstairs.
We can open the door to that room tonight,
even if it says
Do Not Disturb.
- Nov 30, 2010

Up to My Eyeballs

My status over at gmail, which is where I keep my “freelance/writing” account, claims that I’m “up to my eyeballs in writing projects.”

And the end of the year certainly is a busy time for writers, but now that we’re on the last day of November, I’m finally able to tick some of those items off my list.

1. NaNoWriMo. No, I didn’t participate this year. But I did spy on my friends who were participating. How did you do? And when can I read your stories?
2. The McSweeny’s Highwire Fiction Award: This is a grant given to a woman younger than 32 to work on her writing. I sent my application off the week before Thanksgiving, and it wasn’t nearly as daunting as I expected it to be. The moral? Don’t ignore opportunities because they seem hard in your mind. Try it before you decide how “hard” it is.
3. The Gotham YA Novel Discovery Contest: This contest requires only the first 250 words and title of your novel, along with a $15 entry fee. I entered it last year, but the rules didn’t say anything about not being able to enter the same novel twice. So, I did. I’m sure the first 250 words are better this time around, anyway.
4. The PAD Chapbook Challenge: I wrote 30 poems in November, y’all! Although I’ve won NaNoWriMo 3 times, this is the first time I’ve successfully completed a poetry challenge. Now I’m putting them aside as I focus on December’s projects.

Numbers 1 – 4 above ALL have November 30 deadlines. What does that mean? If you read this post immediately after it goes up, there might still be time for you!!

Now that those writing adventures are behind me, I can focus on these, in deadline order:

1. Finishing the revision on my final chapter of the YA novel, in time to turn it over to my writers’ group on December 11th.
2. Frantically spit, polish, and shine said novel between December 17 (writers’ group) and December 31 (Delacorte Press First Young Adult Novel Contest deadline).
3. Turn my attention to this jumble of 30 poems and perform same treatment on them to send them off for the January 5 PAD Chapbook Challenge deadline.
4. Prepare a curriculum for Writing for Expression, Reflection, and Legacy, a writing class I’m teaching to senior citizens this spring.
5. And after the class ends in April? There appears to be . . . a void. For now. I can’t wait to see what fills it!

NaNo Congrats, Writing Advice from a 12-year-old, And Poem #3

I’m pleased to announce that all the friends I’m spying — er, cheering — on at NaNoWriMo now have words to their names. Yay!! The public guilting shall abate for a time.

This morning I programmed this article to run on the homepage of NewMoon.com. Check it out — this 12-year-old will cut through all your wimpy excuses for not writing (I don’t have time, I’m not a good speller, my grammar sucks, etc.)!

And, here’s my poetry attempt from last night, using the help of my picto-journal:

Religious though he is, even he can see the

hyporcrisy of praying to the Lord Almighty

when no one has a prayer

left anyway. They mostly all

turned away the summer the

war tanks rolled over the

many fields so pains-takingly planted that spring,

taking away the one thing that had

always made them trust in the

Goodness of the Lord,

from whom came the soil, the rain, the growth.

“Too much sin,” proclaimed the preacher.

“God has his reasons,” the old women’s voices murmur

as they rock on front porches

just as they’d said when Baby Dawn was born

with her parts all in the wrong places

when Mary’s husband left for groceries

and never came back

when Nyla’s son got so drunk

that he didn’t think to check for the train.

This is bigger, perhaps, but no different

makes no more sense,

so they clack rosary beads between their fingers

which tremble from palsy

or explosions.

The image was from some religious publication — a pic of an old preacher in a black robe with a massive cross spreading his arms in prayer while a tank rolled over a field in the background and with an explosion in the distance. The caption said, “Religious hypocrisy has turned many away from God.” I used the words from the caption as the original “spine” of the poem, although I think the poem would be better off without them in later drafts.

Day 2, Poem 2

My friends still have 0 words on their NaNoWriMo‘s. Nooooooo!! (You may think I’m being over-dramatic, but I really do stress out about other people’s procrastination).

Today I put together a NaNoWriMo display at the library, and when I went to the site to download the graphics, I felt this ache in my heart not to be updating my word count. Last year I had Europe to distract me through November. But this November, I’m daily fighting the temptation to throw the rest of my life and projects away for a while and plunge in, just for that wonderful sense of accomplishment you get when you update your word count every day (I mean at least there, those words do mean SOMETHING, even if it takes you two years to untangle the mess you made of them).

I did feel a nice sense of accomplishment while working on ETD tonight; I reworked what’s essentially the “emotional climax” of the novel so that it resonates more deeply and ties into the rest of the novel better as well. I even discovered a few new connections. That means I only have one chapter left to revise, but it’s going to need some pretty big revisions just to make the logistics of it work. It’s a bummer to have logistics get in the way because I do like the last chapter pretty much the way it is. But unless children start going to school 7 days a week, I’ll need to do some tweaking. (This stuff didn’t even exist in draft one, and draft two was created over MANY long months — so many long months that I lost track of things like how many days in a row the main character was going to school. Oops.)

I wrote my first poem based on a LiveJournal prompt tonight! Here it is, November’s 2nd Poem:

She says if I saw it today
I’d think it was funny.
But all I can remember
is a gray-faced girl
with blood in the bathtub,
eyes and ears and tongues
mutilated to corn-hash mush.
See No Evil
Hear No Evil
Speak No Evil

Like the three monkeys,
we were three little girls
and one unexpected boy
huddled together
in one big bed
With screams from the living room,
our eyes closed tight
was not enough to save us.

When I sit beside you on the couch
you confirm what I remember:
This was never funny
You grew up listening to
the noises in crumbling walls,
and made ghosts your only fear.
Three little girls again,
and you the unexpected boy –
well, your parents only wanted one.
And after that, you knew what happened
to your brother.

You know it’s not funny
but you find a way to laugh away fear
and that’s why I crawl into bed with you
and imagine myself brave after all
burrow into your neck
to see no evil
hear no evil
speak no evil

NaNo-ers, My Heart is With You!

The badges are so pretty this year!

Well, it’s here! For writers and would-be writers everywhere, this is the day you’ve been waiting for. November 1st, the official start of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Well do I remember the joys, the sorrows, the euphoria, the stress, the comraderie! of this month of exuberant, frantic writing. And although I’m not participating this year, I am hoping to do all I can to support those who are: I created a NaNoWriMo page for the girls at NewMoon.com (which will also be featuring writing tips on the homepage all month long), I’m using my adult power and influence to pressure teens at the library to participate, and I’m planning to spy on and harass my friends who are participating (0 words so far, for shame!! If you’re participating and would like me to harass you, leave a comment with your NaNo username below — mine is sedeara.)

I certainly won’t be slacking on my writing this November, though! Besides asking my friends and associates, “Are you writing? Are you writing? Are you writing?”, I’ll also be:

1. Writing poetry every day for the PAD Chapbook Challenge. Poetry is not my strong suit due to the fact that I don’t read a lot of poetry, so I’ll be doing that this month, too. I intend to rely heavily on my Picto-Journal for inspiration (I’ll be adding some new pics to it tonight). I also plan to convert the daily “writers block” prompts over at LiveJournal as poetry prompts. And, I hope to bust out the guitar for the first time in 11 months and try to write a song for the first time in 4 (yikes!) years. And of course, I can’t forget magnetic poetry! I hope to share some of my efforts here.
2. Finishing the third draft of ETD, which is, incidentally, my NaNoWriMo project from 2008 (written just as I was starting this blog).
3. Attending the Call to Action national conference in Milwaukee. I write for CTA’s 20/30 (young adult) blog, with my most recent post being about the Biblical idea of “holding all things in common.” (Is it Communism? Socialism? Democracy?) I’m excited to hang out with the other bloggers in person again, to be traveling to the event with my best friend, and to hopefully be gaining some inspiration for upcoming blog posts.
4. Fantasizing about what I would be writing if I WERE doing NaNoWriMo this year. Lately, I’ve become very preoccupied with an idea I have for retelling Rapunzel. Thus, I dressed as Rapunzel for Halloween and have been listening a lot to a Rapunzel concept album a friend made for me. How fitting that Disney’s Tangled (which I’ve been looking forward to for years) also comes out this month!

Rapunzel dreams of having a life outside the tower

Enjoy all the wonderful writing November has to offer! I know I will!